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Veronica still lives

Contrary to the currently prevailing public opinion, there may indeed be life on Mars.

Veronica Mars, that is, the oddly endearing and enduring young detective show, which survived the rocky merger of the former UPN and WB, and a shotgun marriage to an increasingly creatively compromised Gilmore Girls, with its middling, if remarkably consistent audience more or less intact.

It doesn't hurt that one of those diehard fans is Dawn Ostroff, entertainment president of the show's freshly minted new hybrid home, The CW.

Then again, it doesn't necessarily help. A misguided effort to broaden its audience with shorter, more self-contained story arcs and a more socially successful Veronica did nothing to improve its numbers. And alienated even its dedicated fans.

Even once back on track, it remained irrevocably "on the bubble" – in imminent danger of abrupt cancellation.

Back home this month shooting a Céline Dion TV biopic – he plays husband/manager René Angelil – Colantoni says the fate of the much-loved series is still very much undecided.

"No one knows anything," the actor insists over double espresso at his old haunt, Café Diplomatico. "But I love how people think they know ...

"We were outside the bubble for the longest time.... And then they put us on after the Gilmore Girls. But people weren't sticking around after Gilmore Girls, because it's really a whole different audience.

That being said, and despite the failure of the experimental retooling, a new initiative came down from even farther out of left field to take the show in a whole new direction.

"Rob (creator/producer Thomas) and a couple of the other executives said, `Let's make a little showcase pilot of what Veronica could be like in four years.' They thought Dawn might latch on to the idea of Veronica as an FBI agent in a kind of sexy workplace environment, á la Grey's Anatomy, that kind of thing.

"We shot 10 pages and they saw it and the reaction was, `That's not our show.' Then they saw the last episode of this season, and it was so on the money ... it was like the first two years. And I think the network was very excited about that.

"You know how it works. They've got six new pilots. And if some of those tank, or if Gilmore Girls doesn't come back, then of course they're going to want us back."

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